Feeling stabby-stabby over the almost erstwhile public option

What is it with [progressive] Democrats?  Can they not step up for their constituents–who, by the way, are composed of more than the 55 to 60-year old population–or are they permanently cowed?  Our country is bleeding from the eyes over health care, yet Dems dither around as if most of us can afford to have  sub par or zero  insurance coverage.

Yes,  I said “dither. ”  So shoot me.

I would really like to know why Lieberman still has a chairmanship, why no one is sitting on the Blue Dogs until they howl for mercy.  Because someone should.   You know, a leader.  If we have any leaders to speak of anymore.

I feel stabby-stabby that our elected officials are such wusses.

Obama wussed out on health care such that he can’t be seen or heard in leaks ever saying he’d ram it through Congress come hell or high water even though Americans voted him into office for just that.  He would rather be all “bipartisan”  (which is a joke when the hard right Repubs remain so rabid) and take presidential  credit for a vote that could be construed as remotely positive than do what’s best for the citizens of this country.

Pelosi has muchos cojones when it comes down to it, but I don’t think she’s got a majority as Reid does.  Nope.  Pelosi would have to scrounge 32 votes for a majority.  Reid not so much.

Reid totally wusses at almost every opportunity. It makes me sick.

I saw Howard Dean on CBS earlier this morning and he seemed resigned to the slight expansion. Sure, Rockefeller’s all happy because he’s wanted to include 55+ year olds in Medicare for a racoon’s lifetime, but that bit of reform excludes  so many people it’s tragic.

I wonder how other progressive Dems feel about their elected representatives’ behavior during the health care debacle.  I know I’m all stabby-stabby, but I wonder whether they are or not.  Maybe most of the people who voted Obama into office don’t even notice.  Maybe they think their part is done so the new-ish administration and the Democratic Senate should have a handle on things while they’re not watching.   Guess what, folks?  NOT.

‘Tis the Season of Much Folly

These are a few of the things I’m tired of hearing (or reading) about:

• Rod Blagojevich.  Throw away the key already!  Well, not really.  Just do the impeachment thing and let us know what happens.  We have more important items to think about, such as how a 25 year-old taken into custody at Camp Cropper in Iraq can die of a “heart attack.”  (Last instance reported Monday, December 15)
• Sarah Palin.  The election is over.  With any luck, so are her presidential ambitions.  I’m praying for obscurity  or ignominy by 2012.
• Karl Rove.  OMGWTFBBQ!  Didn’t Bush 43 send him back to Texas? Is Rove so desperately in need of a job that he has to go back to D.C.?  Karl, go home. We don’t want you any more, and if the Republicans had any cojones (or any sense) they’d kick you to the curb. Who helped lose the last election? You.   Sometimes vicariously, but it was still you.
• That Obama’s cabinet picks aren’t progressive enough.  The blush is off the American Beauty before Obama’s even been inaugurated. What’s up with that? Give the guy a chance to do some real damage before complaining!
• Rielle Hunter and Ashley Alexandra Dupre.  I’m sad for the former’s baby, but I have no sympathy for women who knowingly sleep with married men.  Especially if they exploit their, err, connections by sitting down for an interview with Diane Sawyer.  ( I have very little respect left for Diane, either. )
• W. and Cheney.  Need I say more?  Probably. I give you:  an International War Crimes Tribunal.
• “The War on Christmas.”  Oh Bill-O, please.   Stop.  You can have your Christmas–in all it’s anti-Semitic glory.  (Gah.)  Just remember where it came from:  Mithras (sol invictus) was born on December 25, so said Emperor Aurelian in the Third Century BCE.

If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.

Falalalala-lalalala!

Meh Culpa: On Barry’s supporters reeling at Clinton as head of State

Ben Smith at Politico points out Obamaland’s revulsion to the potential appointment of Hillary as Secretary of State.  Dare I say Obama’s brilliant? I think so.  Not only does it neutralize Hillary politically by removing her from the Senate, she would prove a tough, savvy negotiator. And although she and the President-Elect disagreed on a few foreign policy issues, she’s going to work hard and follow orders.  If she proved nothing else during her years as First Lady it was that she’s a good soldier, so good that some of Bill’s policies rubbed off [unfavorably] on her presidential campaign.  Case in point: did anyone really believe her when she said she didn’t support NAFTA?  Obama is smart enough to know that.

While  Republicans decried Obama as the most liberal member of the Senate–which meant Hillary is more conservative–that’s simply not true.  From a leftist’s perspective, he’s actually kind of conservative.  Note his feelings about same sex marriage. He might have said Prop. 8 was “divisive and discriminatory,” but his lack of support for Prop 8 seemed to have more to do with changing the California constitution than with recanting his religious views on the subject.

”I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.”

That’s not the statement of a leftist politician. That’s a Constitutional lawyer talking.

In any case, Obama’s nobody’s fool.  There are rumbles of  the appointment being a fait accompli, so he may just have a slam dunk after all.  I’m also sure he’s aware that getting the Clintons as a public two-fer is perhaps the only way this appointment could fail.  Certainly, Hillary and Barack could use Bill as an unofficial adviser, which the former president would be anyway, but Obama shouldn’t allow the country to perceive the new administration as looking backward. Barack Obama was not elected only on the basis of his policies and judgment; unlike John McCain, who looked over his shoulder and bowed down to The Golden Age of Ronald Reagan,  Obama, it could be argued, was also elected as a forward-thinking president of the 21st century.

He needs to keep it that way. So does Hillary. She will rein in Bill if she wants to go anywhere after being Secretary of State.